Hydrogen-containing saline alleviates pressure overload-induced interstitial fibrosis and cardiac dysfunction in rats.
Yang J, Wu S, Zhu L, Cai J, Fu L. · Molecular Medicine Reports. 2017;16:6849.
What kind of evidence is this?
Preclinical
Controlled rat study
Cardiovascular and circulatory health
Other forms
Mixed positive preclinical signal.
Animal cardiac functional, tissue and biomarker outcomes.
Methods at a glance
Male Wistar rats after aortic constriction to model pressure overload.
Surviving analyzed groups included 7 constriction-control, 7 hydrogen-saline and 8 normal-control rats.
16 weeks.
Hydrogen-containing saline 10 mL/kg intraperitoneally once daily after surgery.
H2 dissolved in saline; not Brown's gas.
Prepared by bubbling H2 at 1 L/min into 500 mL saline for 10 minutes; final concentration was not reported.
Not applicable to administration — intraperitoneal injection.
No oxygen was co-delivered.
Normal and aortic-constriction saline-control groups.
Outcomes and reported result
Cardiac function, dimensions, fibrosis, histology and oxidative-stress markers.
Ejection fraction, fractional shortening, fibrosis and selected oxidative measures improved, while several cardiac dimensions and ratios did not.
The full article, survivor counts, methods and significant and null findings were checked.
A reported association, difference or mechanism is not automatically a clinical benefit. Null findings, outcome type, study design and precision all matter.
Cautions and applicability
Small surviving groups and incomplete clarity about post-surgery attrition; animal results do not establish a clinical effect.
The reported rat pressure-overload model.
SYRCLE animal-study tool — preliminary
Some concerns
Post-surgery attrition and unclear concealment and assessor blinding raise concerns.
Randomization/allocation reporting is limited · Blinding of personnel is unclear · Attrition is incompletely reported in places · Blinding of outcome assessors is unclear · No prospectively registered analysis plan identified
No single-study GRADE certainty rating is assigned. Certainty is assessed by important outcome across a complete eligible evidence set, not by attaching a final grade to one source.
Sources and record status
PMID: 28656216 · DOI: 10.3892/mmr.2017.6849
Free full article in PubMed Central.
PubMed record and PubMed Central full text; extraction checked 9 August 2026.
2026-08-10